Hospital sector on the way to centralising AAA surgery

England’s hospital sector will have largely completed a reconfiguration of surgery for abdominal aortic aneurysms by April, HSJ analysis shows.

Health analytics firm Dr Foster last week published a list of 21 trusts that were not meeting the Vascular Society’s thresholds for a minimum of 33 patients to be operated on per year − but most have already centralised or agreed to centralise services.

In some areas centralisation has been delayed by problems including the lack of a regional management structure.

Aneurysm work from East and North Hertfordshire Trust will move to West Hertfordshire Hospitals Trust under a process that had been led by the NHS Midlands and East specialised commissioning group.

East and North Hertfordshire’s chief executive Nick Carver said: “With the changes that took place across the NHS as of April 2013, the trust is not yet clear as to the next steps relating to the proposed changes in the provision of specialist vascular surgery services within Hertfordshire.

“As this is a commissioning-led process, the trust is awaiting confirmation as to the final decision being taken, the timescales involved and the provisions that will be taken to ensure that the trust’s renal medicine and cardiology services continue to receive the same level of vascular surgery support as is the case currently.”

Meanwhile, in Essex, Southend University Hospital and Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals foundation trusts are waiting to see which of them will have services centralised at their site.

Last week Wirral University Teaching Hospital Foundation Trust confirmed its AAA services would move to Chester by April. In July 2011, its consultant body gave a vote of no confidence in the trust’s chief executive and criticised plans to move vascular services to the Countess of Chester Hospital Foundation Trust.

A spokesman for Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh said: “Until a fully functioning regional arterial centre is established, [the trust] will continue to provide the best possible outcome for patients diagnosed and treated for vascular disease.”

AAA services at Buckinghamshire Healthcare Trust are going to be relocated at Oxford University Hospitals Trust, with discussions set to take place early next year.

Salisbury Foundation Trust and Dorset County Hospitals Foundation Trust are both planning to transfer AAA work to Bournemouth once new facilities are built there.